‘Privatised gain and socialised loss is the defining story of capitalism over the last decades.’
Photograph: Roger Bamber/Alamy

Something strange is happening in British politics. I’m not talking about the divisive quagmire of Brexit or the frightening rise of xenophobia. I’m talking about a broad cross-party agreement that the economic model of the last half a century has failed. I’m referring to an (almost) ubiquitous call across the multi-coloured manifestos of the 2017 election to start building “an economy that works” – for everyone.

Isn’t it a bit odd to find this exact same turn of phrase across the political spectrum: blue, red, orange, green? (Only Ukip has no truck with an economy that works.) It looks a little bit like someone has been copying someone else’s homework; and it isn’t entirely clear who. When Theresa May first used the phrase, on the steps of Downing Street back in July 2016, she made it sound like her own idea. But in fact she lifted the language – lock, stock and barrel – from a speech Jeremy Corbyn gave at the launch of Labour’s inaugural state of the economy conference. He promised to “create an economy that works for all, not just the few”.

A careful archivist could uncover a longer pedigree. The phrase appeared on the Green party’s website long before Corbyn and May borrowed it. Interesting. The Greens picked it up from a campaign launched by the Aldersgate Group – an alliance of leaders driving action for a sustainable economy. Curiouser and Curiouser. Ultimately, we can trace it to the worldwide chorus of disapproval against the “age of irresponsibility” that created the financial crisis.

Almost a decade on, it seems kind of obvious that something different is needed. An economy that works has to be a good thing, right? Meaningful work, decent incomes, good life chances, reliable access to healthcare and education, affordable housing, resilient communities, inclusive societies, living in a world that doesn’t trash the climate or the rivers or the soils. What’s not to like about this vision – a tantalising promise to create a “good society”?

Of course it rather depends who you are. And what your life chances happen to be at the time of asking. There’s a minority who have done rather well from an economy that doesn’t work at all. The much reviled 1%. A financial (and political) elite who’ve managed to benefit massively from the machinery of growth: globalisation, financial deregulation, asset price speculation, collateralised debt obligations, credit default swaps. An impenetrable language hiding a tale of human misery. Not just to benefit, indeed, but to use their considerable power in persuading a captive state to stack the odds in their favour and sweep the risks under the public carpet. Privatised gain and socialised loss is the defining story of capitalism over the last decades.

But it also depends how you set about translating vision into practice. How, for instance, does an economy that works, actually work? What does work itself look like in the economy of tomorrow? Work is more than just the means to a livelihood. It’s a vital ingredient in our connection to each other – part of the “glue” of society. Good work offers respect, motivation, fulfilment, involvement in community and in the best cases a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

The reality, of course, is often different. Too many people are trapped in low-quality jobs with insecure wages. If they’re lucky. Two-thirds of European countries now have youth unemployment rates higher than 20%. In Greece and Spain, youth unemployment in 2015 was close to 50%. This enormous waste of human energy and talent is also a recipe for civil and social unrest. It undermines the creativity of the workforce and threatens social stability. The long-term implications are nothing short of disastrous.

Some of this is on the radar. Matthew Taylor’s review of employment practices will be one of the first things to arrive on the next prime minister’s desk. The chances are it will be an immensely useful document, particularly if it goes beyond the vaguely puritanical promises to crack down on tax evasion in the gig economy that currently pepper the blue manifesto. Even more so, if it dares to talk about the quality of work. Or if it begins to question the prevailing assumption that a hi-tech digitalised world of robots and AI is going to save us.

Let’s be clear. Technical innovation can deliver us a better quality of life, freedom from drudgery, the ability to be more productive. But there are also places where it makes no sense. Certain kinds of tasks rely inherently on people. The care and concern of one human being for another is a case in point. Its quality rests primarily on the attention paid by one person to another. And yet compassion fatigue is a rising scourge in a health sector hounded by meaningless productivity targets.

Craft is another example. It is the accuracy and detail inherent in crafted goods that endows them with lasting value. It is the attention paid by the carpenter, the tailor and the designer that makes this detail possible. Likewise it is the time spent practising, rehearsing and performing that gives creative art its enduring appeal. What – aside from meaningless noise – is to be gained by asking the London Philharmonic to reduce their rehearsal time and play Beethoven’s 9th Symphony faster and faster each year?

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An economy that works must have something to do with investing in work itself. Care, craft, culture, creativity: these sectors offer a new vision of enterprise: not as a speculative, profit-maximising, resource-intensive division of labour, but as a form of social organisation embedded in the community, working in harmony with nature to deliver the capabilities that allow us to prosper.

Much of this exists in the rainbow manifestos of the 2017 election, but there are differences of course. Labour, remarkably, has fully costed the vision. The Tories appear somewhat arrogant in failing completely to do so. The Lib Dems have understood that the vision needs to be personal. The Greens have gone furthest in offering innovative policy to deliver it. Their proposals to trial a land tax, to challenge executive remuneration and to introduce a universal basic income are radical, pragmatic and extremely timely in dealing with the challenges ahead.

Manifestos will come and go but one startling realisation persists. The failed experiment of free-market, neoliberal economics that has haunted modern politics, undermined the fabric of society, disempowered government and left millions behind, may just be coming to an end. Building an economy that works for everyone has become a precise, definable and meaningful task.